#oiace

No, I hadn't heard of that one. I'm just quickly looking through some of their stuff and what little I've seen is quite obnoxious.

For example, they could be talking about real problems in countries such as Nigeria - e.g. the murder of Deborah Samuel - India, Indonesia, Pakistan and others, where Xians are actively harassed and even killed, rather than left alone. Unsurprisingly, this is often because of Islam.

Here's an entire page of real problems Xians in the world face. Almost none of it in Europe. I'm just mentally comparing what they're doing to what EXMNA - Ex-Muslims of North America - are doing. EXMNA have a worldwide persecution tracker. But these people are complaining about the plight of Xianity in some of the most privileged and free countries of all. Many of them Xian-majority. For now.

For example, they whine about secular intolerance...

... can be understood as a dynamic coming from the ideological agenda of secularism to marginalise and banish religion from the public sphere."

Basically, they don't get to inject their bullshit into public policy. Further:

More and more often, the principle of separation between church and state is mistakenly understood to require a separation between faith and politics, with the result that it is becoming less and less acceptable to base one’s political positions on religious convictions. [..]

Examples of secular intolerance include intolerance towards Christian moral teaching, and the removal of Christian symbols from public spaces.

No, the mistake is theirs. The reason they don’t get to inject not just their church but their “faith” into politics is so that they don’t end up being subjected to policy created by Muslims, Hindus or Scientologists injecting their “faith” into public policy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secularism

Religious minorities and non-religious citizens in a country tend to support political secularism while members of the majority religion tend to oppose it.

[..]

There are many principles that are associated with political secularism. It typically promotes legal equality between people of different religions, opposing a legal hierarchy on the basis of religious belief or lack of religious belief. It is also associated with a separation of church and state, considering these to be two distinct entities that should be treated separately. State supremacy is a secular principle that supports obedience to governmental law over religious law, while internal constraint is a secular principle that opposes governmental control over one's personal life. Under political secularism, the government can enforce how people act but not what they believe. Similarly, freedom of thought is supported by secularism. Order is supported by secularists, specifically in that one's beliefs should not be permitted to disturb the civil peace. Religious tolerance is supported both for people of other religions and a lack of piety demonstrated by members of one's own religion. Political secularism also supports reason as a virtue. Secularists also support freedom from religion as an extension to freedom of religion.

What monsters! /s

The artistic and private spheres exhibit both a lack of sensitivity to, or direct provocation of, religious sentiment. One example is a “blasphemous” art festival held in September 2021 in Naples, Italy. The festival claimed to promote freedom of expression against “religious censorship”. Most of the art seen at the festival was anti-clerical or anti-Catholic. The event was spons.ored by the municipality of Naples and the Ministry of Education and Culture. Images from the event’s website show statuettes of two halfnaked Virgin Marys, and a drawing of the image of Christ with an erection in front of a kneeling child.

The problem with the festival is not the content, but the fact it was spon.sored by the state. That part is - or appears to be - a legitimate complaint. But is exactly the same reason this...

Examples of secular intolerance include intolerance towards Christian moral teaching, and the removal of Christian symbols from public spaces.

.. is unreasonable.

Whether they like the content or not is as irrelevant as whether non-believers regard their scripture as superstitious fairytales. They can post or write about not liking it while others who want to engage with it can do so, just as Xians can engage with their nonsense while we can post or write about how nonsensical it is.

The entire point of secularism is like the liberal “color-blind” approach to law, employment, etc. You don’t get to elevate one belief over another. And you shouldn’t make a law unless you’d be comfortable living by that law no matter what position in society you occupied. Including another belief system. Or none.

There’s a distinct irony of them whining that secularism is being imposed upon them, given that secularism is the basis by which they get to complain about other people’s beliefs being imposed onto them. They’re making an argument against secularism using secularism as its basis.

The upshot of it is that they’re just complaining about not being able to impose their majority will onto everyone else.

They also whine about "religious illiteracy," which...

... we define as a lack of understanding about the basic tenets of a religious tradition, the ignorance about the diversity of these traditions and the ignorance of the profound role that religion plays in the social, cultural, and political life of individuals.

Which is the arrogance that assumes that an individual can't live a full social, cultural or political life without their nonsense. And seems to function as a complaint about an inability to indoctrinate kids. Who will now grow up intellectually unmolested.

Notice too that they include "political", which again speaks to the slipping political influence they're looking to bolster.

There are some problems in European countries, particularly in regards to freedom of expression and "hate speech" laws. Many of these seem to be geared towards protecting the sensibilities of the most fragile and volatile Muslims. But this isn't "discrimination against Xians", it's a problem with overreach generally, and not sticking to liberal values. It’s not “discrimination against Xians” when atheists, ex-Muslims and everyone else is subjected to the hair-trigger rage of fundamentalist Muslims.

https://www.secularism.org.uk/opinion/2022/06/britains-de-facto-blasphemy-law-strikes-again

With cinemas pulling the plug on a 'blasphemous' new film, the ugly spectre of religious censorship has again returned to the UK. Citing 'security concerns', cinema chains have cancelled screenings of The Lady of Heaven, a historical drama concerning the life of Lady Fatima, the daughter of the prophet Muhammad.

Cinemas acted in response to a series of protests in Birmingham, Bolton, Bradford and Sheffield by groups of Muslim fundamentalists who insisted the film should not be shown.

Likewise, there are certain ideas around “social justice” - “antiracism”, gender ideology, self identification, DEI, etc. - that affect public policy which people of all persuasions have had difficulty being able to criticize, resulting in cancel culture. Again, this isn’t a burden put onto Xians alone, and it’s one of the reasons we frame it in terms of a “woke religion.”

These things aren’t impositions onto Xians, they’re impositions onto everyone. Xians are being treated the same as everyone. The problem is that everyone is being treated unfairly, but they’re playing the unique victim. This is a society-wide problem of left-wing authoritarianism, but comes after centuries of religious authoritarianism silencing dissent and criticism of Xianity under blasphemy laws.

It's a fascinating study of hypocrisy and pettiness. For example, in the most recent report, we find this under "Direct Insults and Mockery."

UK Member of Parliament James Dornan attacked his Christian colleague Jacob Rees-Mogg on Twitter after Rees-Mogg posted a video about the Nationality and Borders Bill. Mr Dornan commented: “Hope you remember this the next time you go to confession. You and your cronies are already responsible for the deaths of thousands and you’re now happy to see the most desperate people in the world suffer and drown. If your god exists you will undoubtedly rot in hell”.

A Twitter spat is not "persecution." There’s both Block and Mute buttons. It’s bizarre that something as minor as this was worth putting on a Europe-wide persecution report. Is this how minor their complaints are? I guess being told you're going to hell is a bit over the line, huh?

While social media platforms regularly ban individuals for alleged ‘hate speech‘ and not complying with their “terms of service”, the same platforms have often overlooked hateful comments against Christians. The Slovakian singer Sima Magušinová was the target of abusive commentary by journalists Petr Tkačenek and Rada Ondřejíček. Ondřejíček wrote: “She is a Christian. You shouldn’t make fun of disabled people,” as a response to Tkačenek’s tweet mocking the singer. After many politicians responded with support for Magušinová and Christians in general, Ondřejíček refused to apologise, replying that “any religious belief is a mental diagnosis from my point of view. Feel free to be offended’’.

Translation: “I don’t understand what hate speech is, but I want to use it as a cudgel anyway.” “We don’t like being silenced, but we want to stop people saying things we don’t like, please.”

The normalization of intolerance towards aspects of Christian moral teaching can lead to social conflict, discriminatory treatment, and perpetuate negative stereotypes about Christians.

So, Xians moralizing and quoting nonsensical fairytales is just a normal part of every day society, but someone clapping back on Twitter is just beyond the pale. “Insults and mockery” aren’t Xians being persecuted, it’s Xianity being treated equally with all other ideas. Which appears to be the real problem.

We’re not obliged to listen to them tell us we’re broken and evil without their god, or watch them stumble around trying to justify their god’s fetish for slavery. We have a right to ignore them, we have a right to push back on them, and we have a right to not have our public spaces littered with their superstitious totems. Otherwise, that’s how you get a Baphomet statue.

And on top of this, it comes alongside complaints about religious individuals being de-platformed for their views on issues such as euthanasia and abortion, and this is a legitimate complaint, one which hopefully now be rectified on Twitter. But pointing out the unfairness of being de-platformed for your opinions and expecting others to be punished for theirs is hypocritical.

Putting these two events together is disingenuous.

In October 2021, during the annual Freshers’ Fair at Oxford University, the stand of the pro-life group “Oxford Students For Life” was violently removed from the event by other students and activists. Peers threw the group’s material into waste bins and refused to let them set it up again, threatening to tear it down again. The pro-life group had previously been criticized on social media when they shared a picture of the stand.

Regardless of your feelings about the issue, they should have a right to a stand at the fair (assuming it was appropriate, and not like, the sports club fair), without violence or intimidation. But criticism of it online is in no way the same thing. Words aren’t violence. Conflating the two is what caused many problems, from Charlie Hebdo to Dave Chappelle.

It’s then weird that they complain about “buffer zones.”

Other legal developments include the establishment of buffer zones, mostly around abortion facilities across the UK, with the aim to “protect” women by preventing dialogue between them and pro-life groups. In these zones, gatherings, silent prayer and addressing women entering a clinic could be prosecuted, with a fine and/or prison sentence. This conflicts with both freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, by criminalising actions that, while in some cases upsetting, are not criminal offences.

They describe it as the benign “preventing dialogue” and “addressing women,” then admit that they know they’re deliberately being upsetting, and feel entitled to do so. I bet the Oxford Students for Life would have appreciated a buffer zone around their stand, though, to allow anyone interested in what they had to say or have available to go un-harassed by dissenters. Which will it be? 

The whole thing is as messy, contradictory, arrogant and incoherent as their scripture. There are some legitimate complaints in there, just as there are some, few legitimate lessons in the bible. But just as those lessons aren’t unique to the bible, neither are the complaints particularly unique to Xianity, and often come down to violations of the same secularism they complain about.

None of which comes down to the level of “persecution.”

For example, under the heading “Negative Stereotypes and Disrespectful Messaging,” they complain that:

In April, the online magazine Politico published Javier Sábada’s commentary “Evangelicals”, in which he describes the group as fanatics who put “magic over science”

What strikes me the most about the papers I’ve read though is that the language they use directly echoes that of Muslims and Critical Social Justice activists in framing their oppressive victimhood. For example, preventing unwanted intrusion of religious dogma into other people’s lives is described as an “ideological agenda... to marginalise.”